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The Democrats have a 2024 conundrum, with heir apparent Vice President Harris presenting a maze of questions and complications. Lets start with the foundational problem: her boss, President BidenJoe BidenBiden restates commitment to 'one China' policy on Taiwan in call with Xi Biden raises human rights with China's Xi during four hour meeting Biden, Xi hold 'candid' discussion amid high tensions MORE.

A USA Today-Suffolk University poll conducted last week had Bidens job approval rating dipping to 38 percent, with 59 percent disapproving. Also, 64 percent of the registered voters surveyed opposed Biden running for reelection, including 28 percent of Democrats.

Furthermore, a mid-October NPR-Marist poll revealed that 44 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents thought someone else besides Biden would have the best chance of winning the presidency.

Maybe now Biden is rethinking his March 25 statement: My plan is to run for reelection, thats my expectation. After all, Bidens expectation might be thwarted by the growing perception that he is a weak leader not up to the task of governing and shaken by the shellacking Democrats received in last weeks elections.

Democratic strategists dream of a turnaround after a potential string of legislative victories. But with inflation soaring, their nightmare is the 2022 midterm elections warning of a red tidal wave, with Republicans likely to win control of the House and perhaps the Senate.

And the wave could crush Harris if she stars in a potential Republican attack ad. In the final days of the tight Virginia gubernatorial race, while campaigning with Democratic nominee Terry McAuliffeTerry McAuliffeInfrastructure updates only get us halfway we need Build Back Better bill, too Kemp makes pitch to conservatives, independents in new campaign ad Democrats expect to pass .75T Biden package this week MORE, Harris displayed a stunning lack of political savvy when she said, What happens in Virginia will, in large part, determine what happens in 2022, 2024 and on."

Harris violated a cardinal political rule never publicly state the future meaning of a race that your candidate could lose and her candidate was walloped.

If the midterms turn out to be a Democratic repudiation, stick a fork in Joe Bidens presidency and expect the following questions to occupy copious amounts of cable bandwidth.

1) When will Biden announce that he is not running for reelection?

Certainly earlier than President Lyndon Baines Johnson when he announced his decision not to seek a second term on March 31, 1968 only eight months from Election Day.

Herein lies the dilemma: The earlier Biden announces his lame-duck status, the more his power decreases, reflecting the aura of a failed presidency. So, naturally, attention then shifts to the Democrats presidential horse race. But more consequential is the national security perspective if enemies think a defeated Biden signals an opportune time for aggression.

Conversely, the longer Biden delays his announcement, the more those seeking the nomination will be handicapped. Nearly two years are needed for an organizational build-up to raise the megamillions of dollars required to wage a successful presidential primary campaign.

For example, then-Sen. Barack ObamaBarack Hussein ObamaEquilibrium/Sustainability Presented by Southern Company COVID-19 kills snow leopards at US zoo David Axelrod calls Rittenhouse judge 'defense attorney on the bench' Manchin set to make or break Biden's climate pledge MORE (D-Ill.)announced his 2008 presidential campaign on Feb. 10, 2007, early in the election cycle.

Then-Sen. Kamala HarrisKamala HarrisWhite House dismisses talk of Harris-Biden rift Christie: Trump rhetoric about stolen election led to Jan. 6 attack Biden aides offer praise for Harris after critical CNN report MORE (D-Calif.)announced her 2020 presidential aspirations on Jan. 21, 2019. But she quickly flamed out and withdrewon Dec. 3, 2019.

2) Will Harris pressure Biden to announce his 2024 plans early? Then she could begin acting like a president-in-waiting while potentially keeping her primary opponents at bay.

3) If Biden announces that he will be a one-term president, when will he endorse Harris as his successor? Or will Biden choose to mimicObamain 2020? Remember, Obama held off endorsing his former vice president until April 14, after Biden had clinched the nomination most likely to avoid embarrassment.

But will Harris even want Bidens endorsement if his job approval rating is below 40 percent? In that case, will she seek to separate herself from him? Any of these scenarios will be an awkward, clumsy dance between Joe and Kamala.

4) At the heart of the Harris 2024 conundrum are her consistently dismal job approval ratings the latest at 28 percent with 51 percent disapproving. And Harriss RealClearPolitics average favorable rating is 40 percent with 51 percent unfavorable.

So what if in early 2023 her ratings are still low, and general election match-up polls show her losing to most or all potential GOP opponents? How then do Democratic presidential candidates wage a primary campaign to defeat the incumbent vice president who is the first minority woman to hold that office?

5) Will Democrats elect Harris as their nominee because its her turn? Historically, the its their turn strategy does not end well for either party. (See Clinton, Hillary 2016.) White House winners are usually charismatic leaders with their fingers on the nation's pulse, and Harris falls short on both. President Biden was a notable exception. He was hardly charismatic but fit the bill when Americans sought a no drama return to normalcy after four years of President TrumpDonald TrumpHouse Freedom Caucus elects Rep. Scott Perry as new chairman Meadows 'between a rock and a hard space' with Trump, Jan. 6 panel On The Money Biden caps off infrastructure week MORE.

6) What if in 2024 Harris is the incumbent president either through an unspeakable event or because Biden resigns for health reasons to give Harris an electoral advantage? Anything can happen between now and 2024.

7) Will Republicans support Harriss candidacy by sending her money and forming pro-Harris groups as a ruse to help her win the 2024 nomination? Yes is my guess.

Finally, it appears the American people are just not that into Harris. She rubs many voters the wrong way branded as an uninspiring leftist and weak leader although shes credited with a historical gender and race breakthrough.

Now, imagine a 2024 election between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. It would be MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) with an unpopular sharp-tongued incumbent female vice president taking on a twice-impeached former president with authoritarian tendencies avenging his 2020 defeat. Our nation deserves better.

Myra Adams writes about politics and religion for numerous publications. She is a RealClearPolitics contributor and served on the creative team of two GOP presidential campaigns in 2004 and 2008. Follow her on Twitter @MyraKAdams.

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Kamala Harris a 2024 problem for Biden and the Democrats | TheHill - The Hill

As a moderate Democrat for more than five decades, I have seen politicians in both parties act remarkably blind and deaf to the true causes of their defeats when they really dont want to hear the truth.

Most recently, the Democrats had a major defeat at the polls, and they have tried to blame it on their failure to pass infrastructure legislation prior to the election. Although this was possibly a small factor, the major unspoken reason was their imposition of excessive closures and mandates related to the COVID-19 pandemic. I am a retired physician, and yes, COVID-19 is a true pandemic that has killed 750,000 Americans in the last two years. However, for healthy younger people, a COVID-19 infection presents minimal health risks.

To better put the deaths in perspective, 200,000 of them occurred in people aged 85 and older. Another 195,000 deaths occurred in people aged 75 and older. Taken together, more than 50% of all COVID-19 deaths occurred in elderly people at high risk for death due to other causes. Only 18,000 deaths have occurred among the 150 million people in the United States aged 40 or younger. The death rate in this age group is about 1 in 10,000.

Among school-age children, there have been fewer than 600 total deaths among the 80 million children younger than 18 years old, for a death rate of less than 1 out of every 100,000 children. Of the deaths in people who were younger than 40 years old, the vast majority of them occurred in people with impaired immune systems due to chronic disease, cancer, severe obesity, or other high-risk conditions.

Fortunately, vaccination usually reduces the severity of the disease and the risk of death. The elderly and those with risk factors for severe COVID-19 infection should choose to be vaccinated, but no one should be forced to be vaccinated. Even after vaccination, some people with weakened immune systems, either from advanced age or other risk factors, will continue to die from COVID-19. No amount of immunization or miracle drugs can prevent this from happening.

Most importantly, if you follow the science, the numbers above cannot possibly justify the imposition of vaccine mandates in schools or in most businesses. People do not want their healthcare decisions to be made for them by the government.

This has been clearly shown with regard to the issue of cigarette smoking. Everyone knows that smoking is harmful and that long-term smoking significantly reduces life expectancy, yet large numbers of people continue to smoke. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that cigarette smoking is responsible for more than 480,000 deaths per year in the United States. Although I would never advocate it, we would save far more lives by making smoking illegal than will ever be saved with vaccine mandates.

Democratic officials have alienated large numbers of moderate Democratic voters, and especially independent voters, by imposing excessive closures, mask requirements, and vaccine mandates. Next November, this will become obvious. By then, both infrastructure bills will have passed, and the Democrats will suffer very large losses at the polls because of their continued overreactions to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Mark Donnell is a retired medical doctor in New Mexico.

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Democrats' overreaction to the pandemic is alienating voters - Washington Examiner

The U.S. Capitol in Washington, October 7, 2021.

Joshua Roberts | Reuters

House Democrats will head into next year's midterm elections trying to hold on to their majority in the chamber as several longtime members say they plan to step down.

On Monday, veteran Reps. Mike Doyle, D-Pa., and David Price, D-N.C., announced they would not run for another term in Congress. Their departures mean at least seven House Democrats will not seek reelection in 2022, compared with at least three Republicans, according to an NBC News tally.

The retirements come as Democrats face the prospect of losing House control in the midterms. They currently hold a slim 220-212 majority in the chamber. As the party of President Joe Biden, Democrats will have to overcome historical trends to keep their majority: The White House incumbent's party usually loses seats in Congress during midterms.

Democrats will try to extend their unified but narrow control of the White House, Senate and House for another two years. Republicans aim to leverage history, new congressional district maps and Biden's lackluster approval rating to win back control of Congress.

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Retirements can not only signal pessimism about a party's ability to keep its majority but also can make districts without incumbents harder to retain.

Many of the Democrats who will not seek reelection represent areas where Republicans could have a tough time winning in 2022. Doyle represents Pennsylvania's 18th District, a Pittsburgh-based seat that Biden won by about 30 percentage points last year, according to Daily Kos data.

The president also carried Price's Durham, N.C.-area 4th District by more than 30 percentage points in 2020. House Budget Committee Chair John Yarmuth a longtime Kentucky Democrat who announced his retirement last week will leave behind the Louisville-based 3rd District, which Biden won by about 22 percentage points last year.

Other seats left open by Democrats appear to be better pickup opportunities for the GOP. Former President Donald Trump won outgoing Democratic Rep. Ron Kind's 3rd District in Wisconsin by about 5 percentage points last year.

Trump also carried Illinois' 17th District, now held by departing Democratic Rep. Cheri Bustos.

Doyle has been in Congress since 1995. In announcing his retirement Monday, the 68-year-old said "the time has come to pass the torch to the next generation." Doyle said he wanted to spend more time with his family and noted that redistricting played into his decision.

States are drawing new congressional district maps after completion of the 2020 Census. While changes to Doyle's seat may not make it harder for Democrats to win, changes to other districts will force some lawmakers to run in environments less friendly to their party.

Price, 81, first spent 1987 to 1995 in the House. After losing a reelection bid in 1994, he won the 4th District back two years later and has represented it in Congress since 1997.

Price said that during the rest of his term he would "continue fighting for the just and inclusive country we believe in."

The midterms will be the first nationwide congressional elections since a mob of Trump supporters overran the Capitol while lawmakers counted Biden's election victory on Jan. 6. After insurrectionists spurred by Trump's false claims that he was cheated out of a second term were expelled from the building, 139 House Republicans and eight GOP senators voted to object to tallying at least one state's certified presidential results.

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Retirements mount as House Democrats try to defend their majority in the 2022 midterms - CNBC

Of all the workers I got to know from the plant, Wally was the most optimistic. He believed in the American dream, or at least in his own ability to achieve it. Unlike many of the white men who broke down in tears at the thought of the plant closing and their machines being taken to Mexico, Wally focused on his goal of opening a barbecue business. Owning your own business meant you could never be laid off or offshored and you never had to rely on a person who might be racist to earn your daily bread. Best of all, you could employ others bestowing on them the gift of a decent job.

Im either going to make it or I wont, he told a friend during his first attempt at selling barbecue to the public. And guess what? I come from a long line of makers.

I followed Wally for about a year, until he died. He had chest pains but refused to go to the hospital because hed lost his health insurance. That heartbreaking experience taught me how deadly the loss of work can be in a country where health care is tied to employment. Men with high seniority who get laid off experience mortality rates that are 50 to 100 percent higher than their co-workers. Of roughly 300 workers who got laid off from the Rexnord plant, I counted three who died within a year of stress-related or alcohol-related illnesses.

This too, was a lesson underscored by the pandemic. In addition to those who passed away from Covid, some 90,000 people in America perished of opioid overdoses in 2020, a 30 percent increase from the previous year. Its not clear if thats because treatment got shut off, or because people suddenly had nothing to do all day long. But we do know that, even before Covid, studies showed an unmistakable link between unemployment shocks and opioid deaths and hospitalizations.

The unemployment rate is measuring more than just jobs, Alex Hollingsworth, associate professor at the ONeill School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University, told me. It measures the health of the community.

Too often those who claim to champion the working class are culturally, geographically and economically disconnected from their everyday realities. Nothing makes this more clear than political language grounded in social safety nets and entitlements, instead of jobs.

After the Rexnord plant closed, John had to appear regularly at an unemployment office to jump through hoops to collect a check that came to a grand total of $335 a week.

Once, he was asked if hed been willing to take a survival job just to put food on the table. That question annoyed him.

Of course Id take a survival job, John said. What other choice do I have? Go on welfare? He bristled at the thought. Unemployment was one thing. Hed paid into that system all this life. Welfare was a different story. No matter how far he fell, going on welfare was a line he had vowed never to cross. Many of the steelworkers I followed felt the same way. They all knew people who gamed the system. They took pride in earning a paycheck, something that distinguished them from a lazy relative or a drug-addicted acquaintance who didnt work.

Even proposals like free college, which Democrats crafted to help families like his, rubbed John the wrong way.

There is no such thing as free, in Johns book.

Free this, free that, John complained one day down at his union hall. Whos going to pay for that? he asked, rhetorically. The workingman, thats who.

John was helping his daughter pay for room and board at a state school, and he worried that it made no sense to take out tens of thousands of dollars in loans just to live and eat, when she could do so far more cheaply at home. He believed in higher education, within reason and to a point. He had gotten his associate degree in piping design at community college, while living at home with his parents. But he had to leave class an hour early every day to get to a job, laying tarmac at an airport. After all that, he was able to get a job that paid about $30,000. Then his uncle drew the lucky straw at a factory that made diesel engines, winning a job application that he passed along to John. Suddenly, John was making $70,000 a year at a job that required no degree at all. To many workers like John, free college is not the brass ring that they are looking for. The ever-increasing number of jobs requiring college degrees feels like a way to shake more money out of working-class people so that professors and colleges can stay in business.

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Build Back Better Is a Jobs Program. Why Wont Democrats Call It That? - POLITICO

Democrat Terry McAuliffe might have slipped up in his second and final debate with Glenn Youngkin, but the Republican has made his own mistakes in his campaign for governor of Virginia. Photo: Win McNamee/Getty Images

The only political media narrative more durable than Democrats in disarray, it seems, is Democrats in full panic. And as President Joe Bidens job-approval rating lingers underwater and the struggle to enact his agenda in Congress drags on, theres a lot of justified pessimism about his partys ability to hang on to a governing trifecta in the 2022 midterms.

But what may turn fear and worry into panic is a defeat in the November 2 Virginia gubernatorial contest. So the big question is: Could that happen, and if so, what does it mean for the future? Here are some (mostly reassuring) points for Democrats to consider.

The case for Terry McAuliffes likely victory is simple: Democrats havent lost a statewide race in Virginia since 2009. In the last gubernatorial contest, in 2017, Democrat Ralph Northam beat Republican Ed Gillespie by a margin of 8.9 percent. Biden defeated Donald Trump in the commonwealth by 10.1 percent. Virginia is blue and getting bluer, it seems.

But then there is Virginias famous reluctance to elect governors from the party that controls the White House. It didnt happen for an amazing 40 years from 1973 until 2013. Yes, McAuliffe was the one who broke the streakbut he won by a spare 2.6 percent against a flawed and underfunded conservative ideologue, Ken Cuccinelli. In the previous governors race, in 2009, Republican Bob McDonnell trounced Democrat Creigh Deeds by 17 percentage points even though Barack Obama had ended the GOPs long presidential winning streak in Virginia the year before. So its true that Old Dominions blue hue can be overstated, particularly when Democrats control the White House; the states proximity to Washington and its powerful media outlets clearly contributes to a regular nationalization of elections there.

Another reason Democrats fear a Virginia defeat this year is Republicans appear to have an enthusiasm advantage in the state, just as they do in much of the country. But McAuliffe has regularly (if narrowly) led Republican Glenn Youngkin in polls that deploy likely-voter screens.

As for the campaign itself, both candidates appear to have made a significant unforced error. In the second and final candidate debate on September 28, McAuliffe defended a bill he vetoed as governor that would have let kids opt out of reading assignments that included sexually explicit materials parents found offensive. Taken out of context, his remark Yeah, I stopped the bill that I dont think parents should be telling schools what they should teach has been rich fodder for Youngkins claim that McAuliffe is loyal to Education Department bureaucrats and teachers unions rather than parents.

More recently, Youngkin was caught flat-footed by a Take Back Virginia rally headlined by Steve Bannon that included not only testaments on behalf of Youngkin (including one by phone from Trump) but a Pledge of Allegiance to a flag that had been brandished at the U.S. Capitol on January 6. This incident reinforced McAuliffes effort to tie his opponent to Trump and Republican extremism.

The race could go either way, but McAuliffe remains the favorite, albeit not with any great confidence.

Virginias history of punishing the party of the president in gubernatorial contests hasnt really made the state a bellwether for subsequent midterm elections, which usually cut against the party in the White House there and everywhere else. On the rare occasions when the presidents party did make midterm gains, Virginia wasnt prophetic at all. In 1997, Republican Jim Gilmore won the governorship over Don Beyer by a landslide the year before Democrats made gains in the House. And in 2001, Democrat Mark Warner solidly defeated Republican Mark Earley just before Republicans made House and Senate gains in the 2002 midterms.

The most recent prophetic Virginia result was probably the McDonnell landslide in 2009, which occurred a year before the national Republican landslide that flipped control of the House (and netted the GOP three seats in Virginia). But even if Youngkin wins, he isnt going to win by the 59-41 margin by which McDonnell won, so it wouldnt represent grounds for Democratic panic.

Those pointing to a 2022 fiasco for Democrats often compare the upcoming election to the 2010 disaster that occurred during Obamas first term. While the odds are good Democrats will lose control of the House in 2022 (unless Bidens job-approval rating turns around and begins to resemble the 60-plus percent numbers enjoyed by Bill Clinton in 1998 and George W. Bush in 2002), Democrats just dont have the kind of exposure they suffered from in 2010 and other midterms with catastrophic results, as Ronald Brownstein points out:

The biggest midterm losses have typically come after elections (like those in 1912, 1964, and 2008) in which the majority party secured significant gains forcing it to defend seats deep in the other partys territory. House Democrats already surrendered in 2020 many of the most Republican-leaning seats they had captured two years before.

Thanks ironically to their underwhelming performance in 2020 House elections, Democrats dont control enough marginal turf to generate anything like 2010s 63-seat loss. Only seven Democrats hold House seats in districts carried by Trump in 2020; going into 2010, 49 House Democrats were in districts won by John McCain despite Obamas big national win. You can certainly make a good argument that partisan polarization has reduced the likelihood of big swings in virtually all national elections. After 2010, it took Democrats four election cycles to regain control of the House. If they lose the House in 2022, the road back could be shorter.

Some of the Democrats in full panic syndrome probably stems from certain partisan characteristics: All else being equal, Democrats tend to see glasses as half full while Republicans perpetually spin future elections as already won (and in the era of Big Liar Trump, past losses as won too). But history and current trends suggest that while some painful House losses are likely in store for the Donkey Party next year, it could well hang on to the Senate and win some key gubernatorial races as well. And theres really no reason at all to assume Biden cant be reelected in 2024 if he chooses to run for a second term.

For now, Democrats should fret less about Virginia and focus more on securing accomplishments in Congress that will serve as a legacy no matter what happens in 2022.

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Is It Time for Democrats to Panic About Virginia and the Midterms? - New York Magazine